The following will be long and probably interest only 1 person. But, instead of putting my time into doing my power rankings I've been doing some stat stuff instead. I had this idea to figure out who was the best hockey player ever and I hated seeing how other people tried to compare players across eras. To me there is only one way to do it.
I started with looking at each NHL year individually starting in 1967. I don't count records or stats that involve less than 10 teams. Why compare Bobby Orr directly to Lidstrom? Why not compare Bobby Orr to his peers then Lidstrom to his. Then compare that comparison! Using 1967 as an example I got the stats for every player. Found the average amount of games played for the league. Deleted all the players that did not play equal to or more than that average because, in my opinion, the greatest skill a player can have is availability. Wayne Gretzky is great, but if he only plays 30 games in a season it isn't very great. Now that we have that new subset I found the average goals scored by those players, as well as the average amount of assists, and the average "True +/-". The True +/- is regular +/- with PP points added to it. This gives a truer representation of a players impact on the ice. PP time is just as important as 5v5 time. Then with each of those averages I compared every player against it. For example the average goals scored by players playing more than the average amount of games in 1967 was 12.88. If a player scored 30 goals they would get a factor 2.33. They scored 2.33 times the average player. This was done for every player across every year. Then I added up all those factors for each player to find out who had the best career.
The very best available GOAT was Jaromir Jagr! Gretzky was a close 2nd.
The best goal scoring year ever was Brett Hull in 90-91 where he scored 6.5 times more than the average
Greatest assist season was Gretzky's 85-86 season where he dished 6.2 times more than the average
The most impactful on ice presence for a year was Bobby Orr in 70-71 where he was on the ice for 38 times more goals for than against compared to the average
If you were to pick any one player from any one year to have the greatest season it would be Mario Lemieux. His average year was better than everyone else. Injuries didn't allow him to have the best career though.
I am supper happy with the results. It is a great mix of players across all eras. It really seems to be a good way to compare players. In my opinion you don't need Corsi or PDO or any other fancy stat to compare what players did. A player either scored the goal or didn't. They either assisted or didn't. They were either a positive influence on the ice or they weren't. All other stats should be used as predictive of future success, but the real stats for GOATs are the ones that actually won and lost games.
If you are bored and want to noodle around in the stats here is a link. You are better off downloading it and using Excel. Google sheets does not like what I did.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KDPzzRaxCuj4K6XvSNS7R8gDZ_y_JSHi/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=115945690041520278334&rtpof=true&sd=trueAlso, if you want to tell me how wrong I am in my process, please do. I am here for that as well.
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